Born to die

January 9th, 2012

According to the Edhi Foundation, the extent of infanticide in the country has grown by some 100 percent over the last decade. A spokesperson for the organisation has been quoted as saying that more bodies were being found in the streets in urban centres than ever before. Most of the tiny corpses belong to girls, considered an economic burden by many families. We can only wonder at the impact of religion at such moments, and wonder why the clerics so rarely bring up the teachings of Islam against female infanticide. The ministry of religious affairs should be working to have the message driven home from every mosque. A situation in which over 1,200 bodies of slain infants were found in a single year is after all not one to be disregarded.

It is believed that some of the infants, who are killed within a few hours of being born, are illegitimate; many others die simply because their parents are too poor to raise them. It is this that explains the fact that more girls than boys are murdered. After all, the number born out of wedlock is likely to include an equal number of male and female infants. There is also a question here of mindset. In the 400 cradles placed outside its centres by the Edhi Foundation, only some 200 babies are left each year. People evidently prefer to murder their children — rather than give them a future, and allow adoption by, say, a childless couple.

Such thinking is hard to understand — but it says something about how brutal we have become as a society. Nothing seems to move us any longer. It take immense hardness of heart — or perhaps sheer desperation — to kill a helpless child. Since poverty appears to be a root cause, this too needs to be addressed. We also need to look at the reasons behind our failure to promote family planning, allowing people to limit the burdens they face and perhaps saving the lives of infants who die even as they are born, ending up on garbage dumps or open plots of land.

An arrest in Turkey

January 9th, 2012

Imagine if every time a former military man in Pakistan accused the elected government of corruption and incompetence, the civilians could just haul him off to jail. Obviously, this would justifiably be seen as a gross abuse of power but it would represent a stunning turnaround in the balance of power between the military and civilians. Yet, this is almost exactly analogous to what is happening in Turkey. The government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrested former army chief General Ilker Basbug for plotting to overthrow the government, although the evidence for this charge seems sketchy since he appears to have done little else but write scathing articles against the government on the internet.

As refreshing as it is to see the civilians reclaiming political space from the military, Erdogan is an imperfect vehicle for this transformation. His actions are inspired as much by religion as a desire to establish civilian supremacy. In his quest to root out anti-government figures, Erdogan has also arrested academics, journalists and other civilian politicians. The idea of the army being the final arbiter in Turkish politics has always been profoundly anti-democratic, but in diminishing its power, the end result could be a reduced role of secularism in the country, an eventuality that certainly not its founder, Mustafa Kemal, would have envisioned. That he is doing so on the basis of flimsy evidence is even worse. So far, it seems that Basbug is guilty of nothing more than exercising his right to criticise the government.

Even though Erdogan seems to be going too far, there is no doubt that the military in Turkey needed to be brought down a peg or two. In the last 50 years, the Turkish army has brought down four governments and, although the army has never shown the same appetite for indefinite rule in Turkey as its counterparts in Pakistan, it is to Erdogan’s credit that he is trying to forestall such an eventuality from arising. Fears about Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party bringing about Sharia law in the country by taking on the army are overblown but he needs to reduce their political role in a lawful manner. Erdogan promised to introduce a new constitution that would do just that but, regrettably, he is now taking the path of mass arrests.

Songs of death

January 9th, 2012

The changing reality of life in many parts of this country, especially in the conflict-ridden zones, is such that it is having an impact on even

things like the kind of music people are listening to. The manner in which this has begun to change is in itself reflective of the kind of society we have mutated into. According to a recent report, in Peshawar popular singers, such as Gulzar Alam, have begun singing once again. Even this is a step forward given that the Taliban had, in many areas, banned all forms of music, dance and much other entertainment. In Peshawar, too, CD shops were burnt to the ground and many folk musicians left the city. They have only now begun to return. But the lyrical content of what Gulzar sings has changed dramatically. His songs speak of the blood spilled in his home city and of the horrors people live with on a day-to-day basis. It is these thoughts that today occupy minds rather than ideas of romance, love and happiness. Others in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been following the same trend and it has spread wider. One of the country’s best known singers, Ali Azmat, recorded a song some months ago called ‘Bomb Phatta’. This too is the reality with which people everywhere live.

The music of our times reflects the kind of lives we lead. The omens are rather disturbing. We need to find a way to return to a normal existence, one in which people can proceed with the tasks of life without facing constant peril. The fact also is that music and other means of entertainment sink deep into minds. They leave a lasting impression. We have then, today, a generation growing up with images of violence that is a part of the popular music that they hear. This has become something they live with. How long can things continue in this vein and will a time ever come when singers are able to perform without fear and their songs speak of joy rather than death.